Visual System Development for Floating Points

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The Process

The visuals for this performance are crafted by Akiko Nakayama and Hamill Industries, a creative studio founded by artists Pablo Barquín and Anna Diaz. Nakayama creates improvisational, fluid paintings in real-time to complement the music, often using a method of splashing liquids like fairy liquid into a dish to create mesmerizing shapes that are then manipulated by both the music and the visuals from Hamill Industries.

For Floating Points, Hamill Industries developed a unique visual language that evolves alongside the music. The performance blends analog processes with custom-built digital systems, creating immersive audiovisual landscapes in real time. This collaboration is not only a visual translation of the music but an integral part of the narrative, where technology becomes a performer in itself.

To tie all of this together requires a sophisticated system that can simultaneously process multiple camera feeds, process them, and use real-time particle systems to transform them into…well…floating points. My role was to help build and refine the system in TouchDesigner, making it as bespoke as possible for Anna as she controls things live so that every knob and slider works with the desired responsiveness in relation to its visual element. In addition, a fair amount of consulting was done on best practices and methodology for efficiency and performance in TouchDesigner when running a complex live set.